Before the game the Georgia coaching staff said it wasn’t going to put Nick Chubb on any sort of a pitch count, and it didn’t. The knee held up just fine carrying the ball 32 times for 222 yards and two scores looking every bit the back he was before suffering his horrific injury midway through last season.

This was a gutty, powerful effort, and while he didn’t quite have the exact same ultra-quickness yet, he showed off the breakaway speed closing things out with a 55-yard scoring dash.

North Carolina’s stars were okay

Mitch Trubisky struggled a bit under pressure all game long. He couldn’t do much of anything consistently down the field finishing with 156 yards on a 24-of-40 day, but the running game made up for it when North Carolina actually stuck with it.

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T.J. Logan averaged 13.3 yards per pop, and Elijah Hood ran well, but the Tar Heels only ran the ball 19 times. Trubisky is a talent who’ll have better days, but he was going against one of the SEC’s best secondaries. When it came down to who was going to perform in the fourth quarter, Georgia’s offense worked, North Carolina’s didn’t because of …

Penalties

Georgia got hit with nine penalties, but North Carolina seemed to be on the wrong end of just about every badly-timed flag getting nailed 13 times for 101 yards. Drive after drive and key moment after key moment seemed to get crushed by a flag or a bad play. There wasn’t any rhythm or flow to the UNC offense because of the mistakes, and because Georgia had the ball for 38 minutes. There weren’t any turnovers, but UNC needed to be close to perfect, and wasn’t.

The Georgia quarterback situation

So now we know the deal. When the Bulldogs aren’t going to mess around, they’ll go with Greyson Lambert as a veteran, steadying leader. He competed 5-of-8 passes for 54 yards – he didn’t do anything crazy. However, Jacob Eason showed off the arm and the playmaking ability down the field that Lambert just doesn’t have, completing 8-of-12 passes for 131 yards and a score. Eason is obviously the main man, but the coaching staff trusts Lambert – for now.

What Does This All REALLY Mean?

Georgia is going to be a work in progress, but the defense was fine, the running game great, and the team’s style seemed to fit what Smart will want to do. With Nicholls State up next, there’s time to rest Chubb – don’t play Nick Chubb, Georgia – but then it’s on the road to face Missouri and Ole Miss. Getting this win under duress in the second half might be a key learning experience.

North Carolina now needs to travel to Illinois, but it’s not that bad for a while with home games against James Madison and Pitt to follow before the road game at Florida State. This is an explosive, dangerous team, but it’s going to need the passing game to start humming.